the operation was under way? weapons were being transported from the southwestern arizona to mexico without -- serious flaws in the operation. when was the first time you or someone within dhs was made aware of the operation? >> i would have to go back and check but i think it was around the time of the death of our agent in southern arizona. >> and what action did you take at that time? >> first of all we wanted to make sure the investigation into the cause of the death and prosecution was pursued vigorously. and that was being done. i did meet with the fbi agent in charge in arizona at the time.

at the time i was told doj was referring the entire matter to the inspector general. so we have reserved judgment until the report comes about. >> when were you made aware that guns which were allowed to walk during fast and furious were used in the murder of border patrol agent bride and terry? >> some time thereafter. >> you could supply that for the record. we would be interested. have you come to any conclusions as to who is responsible for this operation? you are doing the investigation? >> we are doing the investigation of the killing of the border patrol agent. that has been pursued. there have been submissions made in court pursuant to that investigation. the investigation with regard to the operation itself and a fruitful of the operation is

being conducted by the attorney general. not the attorney general but the inspector general of the department of justice. >> have you reached any conclusions of far? >> i am not privy to what the inspector general's investigation has shown at this juncture. i was concerned in terms of the extent to which there was fbi involvement and a conclusion that there was not fbi involvement in that particular operation. >> your conclusion is who was involved? >> it is atf which was the principal agencies involved. if you are asking about who beyond atf and agents on the ground and others in the supervisory line that is being investigated by the inspector general's office and i am not privy to their findings today. >> we leave it all to the

inspector general has to their conclusions. u.s. director don't have any role? >> we do not have a role in that particular aspect of the investigation. we have a very important role in bringing to justice those persons responsible for the death of the agent. >> but you are awaiting an inspector general's report. >> not on that. we are pursuing the investigation who is responsible and what weapons were used in the killing of the border patrol agent. >> what conclusions have you arrived at? >> there are submissions made in court in support of -- i would have to get back to you where it is in terms of charging somebody. >> it would be nice if you get back to me but we have a dead border patrol agent. we have a situation which at least for a perk of time was out of control. it has been a number of weeks since that happened and you would be glad to get back to me.

>> i do not know the specifics what charges were brought in arizona with regard to that shooting. >> can you share what information you have? >> we have information relating to individuals who were there. we have individuals identified as a result of interviews we conducted. we did forensics of the scenes and the weapons and pursuing the weapons. >> when will that information be made privy to the american people? >> it is an ongoing investigation. my expectation is much of that information will be made available in criminal proceedings brought against the individuals responsible for that killing. >> i thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. next is senator akaka. >> thank you for holding this hearing. i join all americans across the

world in mourning the loss of thousands who died as a result of the terrorist attacks a decade ago. as we commemorate this solemn anniversary we must acknowledge the tremendous progress over the last decade to secure our nation against terrorist attacks. i want to commend both administration's resolve and successful strategy to prevent another attack. we must also commend the men and women who served briefly in the military as well as the federal, state and local workers in homeland security, law-enforcement, intelligence and other fields who made essential contributions to combating the terrorist threat. this anniversary is an

opportunity to reflect on all of us today. we must remain -- remain vigilant so privacy and civil liberty are not sacrificed in the name of security. as we reaffirm that we will never forget those who died ten years ago let us resolve to continue to take steps to assure such a tragedy will never happen again and to strengthen the principles upon which our nation was founded. the former chairman of the 9/11 commission released a report listing nine recommendations that remain unfinished including the absence of a functioning privacy and civil liberties oversight board. in april i joined senators at

the 11 -- lieberman and collins asking that he nominate a full slate of members so the board could operate. i would like to ask these questions to the panel and if any of you can comment or otherwise provide for the record, that will be fine too. what is the status of the board being formed? how are counterterrorism efforts reviewed? this is an important part for privacy and civil liberties concerns, given that it is dormant? >> i don't know the status of

the board itself. i can say as the department we have a presidentially appointed privacy officers who run the privacy office. they are integrated into all of our program planning particularly with respect to information sharing and how that is done. making sure mous with the nctc that week include uses that users audit training and also that we respect you as persons put special invitations on time of retention on certain types of records so that those kinds of privacy concerns we think about before we move forward. they are important to protect.

>> we have attorney-general guidelines for a number of years that guide our investigative activities. secondly we have an individual responsible for overseeing our particular initiative from the perspective impact on privacy and civil liberties. surge, we have some form of initiative being undertaken. we have a panel review of that initiative which has persons from our legal counsel's office and also the department of justice that oversees that particular undertaking being reviewed by the panel by the panel. >> i do not know the status of the board but i would say at nctc we have three layers of oversight that consider our activities from civil liberties and privacy perspective.

internally we have civil liberties privacy officer assigned to nctc for the sole purpose to review our activities from that perspective. we have attorneys in the general counsel's office who conduct the same activities with respect to our work. secondly, all of our handling of prison information is done pursuant to attorney general guidelines and director mueller made reference to that as well. when we handle information obtained by the intelligence surveillance act the court has a role in overseeing that activity. finally we are subject to very robust congressional oversight through the house and intelligence committees. >> secretary napolitano, the asia-pacific cooperation leaders meetings will be held in

honolulu in november. this high profile event has raised concerns that hawaii could be a target of a terrorist attack. local residents have expressed concerns about the island of oahu being locked down as a result of security measures. howard the u.s. secret cerus security plans progressing? how will they inform the public about areas to avoid and businesses impacted by security measures? >> the meeting you reference has been designated special security event, a meeting that the secret service will provide lead organizational responsibilities but we will work very closely and are integrated with hawaii officials and local law

enforcement. they are an integral part of planning and execution at any nsse event. there will be a plan for areas that are closed down and the like. one thing i will say to reassure the presidents of oahu is when we do these nsses we are conscious that people live in these cities and need to get to work and school and so forth. for example next week we have the un general assembly convened and we will have many national leaders in new york city and still new york city will work and people will be able and have been able to get to where they need to go for the most part. so we're very sensitive to that. we acknowledge that. i use general assembly as an

example of something perhaps more complex than the one in oahu to say we have some experience here and will deploy our best efforts in hawaii. >> thank you very much. >> senator pull. >> thank you for coming today. secretary napolitano, we have admitted 70,000 iraqis over the past three years, two of this senator collins brought up earlier were arrested in bowling green on accusations of being or conspiring to be involved with terrorism. i can kind of understand refugees status after we lost the war in vietnam and communists took over and people who sided with those would be executed. we won the war in iraq and we are admitting 70,000 iraqis. when we win the war and there's a democracy over there was reason to we have to admit so

many and the policy of the administration to continue to admit so many ended is not a danger to our country and overwhelming us with numbers of folks who have to be screened and sometimes not screen properly? >> as i explained earlier we have prescreened the iraqi population who were admitted as refugees against all the dhs databases and department of defense biometric databases and for any future refugees we will continue to do the same. if there are particular concerns and individuals we refer them sometimes to the fbi for further investigation or checking. >> is there a position on admitting so many people and continuing to admit so many people from iraq? >> the refugee program was done under the prior administration and many individuals who have been reject were admitted. with respect to the current time people qualified for refugee

status under the law. they will be permitted to come in. >> understanding the number is determined by the administration. your administration determine the number and if you want 3,000 next year my understanding is you could. >> my understanding is that is done primarily by the state department and a number of considerations are taken into account. >> the argument is unsafe in iraq but is an insult to our soldiers who are over rivera to say it is unsafe. our soldiers are protecting their country but so unsafe that iraqis get to leave and come over here. to add insult to injury not only do we have come over here but we bring them over here. both these people accused of terrorism in these country were living in government housing on food stamps. in the '96 welfare reform bill we went ahead and limited and said if you come legally through emigration you wouldn't qualify for welfare. i think we should change that.

does the administration have a position on refugee status and whether they should be coming here and put on welfare? >> i can't answer that question. i will get back to you. >> bowling green seems to have been in the news. we had a little girl on good morning america that many people saw. she was on with tsa agents doing and invasive surge -- search in her pants and a 95-year-old who had their diaper taken off and inspected and i assume waited for hours to get through the tsa. wendy tsa head -- he said we need to do these invasive surge the research --searc--search. he sent the-year-old in canada are exploded a bomb. to think there's a similarity between and 8-year-old in canada

are and one in bowling green? the only similarity is their age. i would consider age a risk factor. age might argue against a risk. to say she is the same age as someone who put off a bomb in canada are, kandahar. why do we have a frequent flier program? a bulk of those traveling a traveling several times a week yet we treat everybody as a terrorist suspect. we take away time on those who could be. i would have frequent flyer program and take half of the agents and looking at the manifest of those flying from foreign countries. i want to know who was on every flight. i don't know how far in advance we're doing this. i would make strict rule on those flying internationally. that is the biggest risk. with those coming from iraq, 70,000 from iraq.

we missed fingerprints on their id. even if we do things perfectly the haystack is too big. in the army we have folks every couple months in iraq and afghanistan who we admit into the army to help us who are our allies and turn around and shoot us. this was an extraordinary circumstance. we had a fingerprint and we missed it. most of the time they could be just lying to us as they go through the vetting process. we put them on government welfare and they are here to attack us. we have enough problems in our country. a lot of poverty. we don't need to admit the world's poverty problem. the administration needs to take a position to lessen the numbers of people coming from iraq. you need to take a position on a frequent-flier program. we need to not just the told there will be risk assessments on day. we need to start doing risk assessment and paying attention to people who could attack as and not wasting and diverting time and resources and insulting

the dignity of those who are traveling. >> i will say with respect to the movement to a risk assessed based strategy in the tsa, that is exactly what we are doing and as i said in the hearing we are moving now to dealing with and rolling out slowly -- we move almost 1.8 million passengers a day. we have a certain amount of unpredictability in this system. the minute you say a group is exempt from screening they can be exploited as a possibility. your point about travelers who are low risk is something we accept. we are moving to expand global entry for international travelers. we just passed our millionth traveler and moving to expand

that. we are moving to loosen restrictions on children under the age of 12 and also to amend the pat down procedures that are used. these improvements are under way but i would caution, senator, when you say do it in a month, we need to move on a deliberate but careful pace. our adversaries are very determined with respect to the aviation system. we want to make sure we do it right. >> one quick follow-up to that. really i agree with you. is not real smart to say we will never search anyone under 12 years old but could we not make a difference the tween and 8-year-old from bowling green and one from kandahar? i don't care if someone is coming from pakistan or afghanistan that is spend a little more time. we need to understand and use

more common sense with what we do and impractical purposes 99% of kids under 12 wouldn't be patted down and that would be better for most of us who are in salted by what they're doing now. >> thank you. chairman levin. >> sorry couldn't be here for most of this. i was chairing the armed services committee hearing, the confirmation of ash carter. let me start with director olson. you note in your prepared testimony the homegrown violent extremist activity is elevated with u.s.-based extremists taking information and instruction from al qaeda's global efforts and a wide range of english-language propaganda. part of that propaganda was a recent video released by an american born confirmed al qaeda

operative to which he urges al qaeda sympathizers to exploit u.s. gun laws and purchase firearms. under current gun laws individuals are allowed currently to purchase a firearm without an fbi background check. if they're buying from a private sector light gun shows. is that loophole make it easier for homegrown extremists to purchase firearms for use in a terror attack? >> i have not looked at the gun laws. after four week in my position i am reluctant to comment on that. >> give us a report. director mueller? >> yes. >> with that fbi background check of -- individuals purchasing firearms, would that reduce the threat to us from

u.s.-based violent extremists? >> background check is important to identify those persons who have reason for being in the databases and enhanced coverage of the purchase of weapons would give us greater identity of persons who should not have weapons and prevent them from getting weapons. that would include the purchase of private sellers like gun shows. >> yes. >> thank you. 50 states formed to million new corporations each year without knowing who really owned them. failure to collect ownership information, the actual owners, so-called beneficial owners invite wrongdoers to misuse u.s.

companies for terrorism, money-laundering, tax evasion and other crimes. is a subject this committee has been examining for some years. in august senator grassley and i introduced senate bill 1483, incorporation and transparency in law enforcement assistance act which would require disclosure of ownership information in the company formation process. at that time the treasury department was very supportive and announce the following, quote, the bill would substantially advanced the administration's interest in ensuring meaningful beneficial ownership information about companies created in the united states and they went on such legislation is critical to the administration's objective of protecting the global financial system and strategic markets from abuse. i want to thank the treasury department for that support.

we are wondering from secretary napolitano if the department of homeland security takes that position we need for law enforcement purposes, to the beneficial owners of corporations are in order to prevent terrorists and other maladies ears from this using shell corporations to launder money or other nefarious purposes. >> we support it. >> i would hope we can take up this bill again. i know you had it on the agenda a couple times for various reasons on and off of our markup but it is important to have testimony that we need to do what other countries do. we go after tax havens for allowing money to -- their jurisdictions to be used to avoid taxes from being paid but one thing they do is get the

beneficial owners corporations on record so they know who owns the show corporations at least in many cases and i would hope again we would be able to take that up and support the treasury department and the department of homeland security is very helpful. i want to get that on the record. on the northern border, some of those issues that have been addressed, the gao in february reported serious security threats to the northern border and the risk of terrorist activity is high. it said the dhs reports the terrorist threat on the northern borders higher than on the southern border given a large expansive area with limited

law-enforcement coverage. that was on page 1 of the report. even with that high risk of terrorists and other illegal activity, the border patrol reports, quote, 32 of 4,000 northern border miles and fiscal year 2010 reached an acceptable level of security. i wonder if you could tell us today or for the record as secretary napolitano, whether that number of northern border miles has increased. >> i believe it has. as we discussed in other contexts the use of the word operational control, that phrase -- we have a northern border strategy. it had to be cleared by omb. we want to update it with the full fiscal year statistics. that will be published shortly. the other change that is very significant is beyond the border

strategy we now have with canada which is a law enforcement information sharing perimeter oriented strategy that didn't really exist two years ago when a lot of that report was probably research. that will be of enormous importance because it takes pressure off of the physical u.s.-canada border and allows us to expand the border out words. >> if you could give us for the record in your own words the number of miles of border that have an acceptable level of security. very quickly if i could, i know my time is up but i have one more question and thank you. the urban area security initiative have complex funding allocation formula.

one of the questions is whether or not a location is on an international waterway for reasons which are totally incomprehensible. the flight is not listed as being on an international waterway when it is. the detour river is an international waterway between the united states and canada. not only that but has more commerce crossing the river than any other place probably in the world much less in the country. in terms of commerce crossing that bridge particularly in detroit. will you take a look at that? the issue of -- find out for us why the city of detroit is not listed. it makes a difference in terms of the allocation of resources whether or not we are on an international waterway. >> i will drill down on that. >> finally, thank you.

yesterday we remembered 9/11. two days now. .. you. yesterday remembered 9/11 -- i guess today's now. been following 9/11, there is a small group of people in detroit representing the arab-american community and law enforcement. they came together and formed a group called bridges. there is but a really strong connection between the law-enforcement community under the leadership of the u.s. attorney in detroit and including also elements of the homeland security department. so the communication is far better. the trust is far better. they work shoulder to shoulder now against violence and hatred. it is an important group because if you have the support of the community, whatever community working with law-enforcement, it is a great source of american

security and that can support kind of support in the arab-american community, and the muslim american community as reflected in that group where federal law enforcement and state and local or representative for frequent meanings. they also memorialized our anniversary. the other day with their annual dinner. it's very reassuring to see the enforcement in their communities , whatever the community is working so closely together. that is where security is really enhanced. it's not just the typical law-enforcement security which is important, protecting borders and doing other things, but also having supported the people in their communities working shoulder to shoulder. i just want to commend you both. fbi is actively involved that. justice department, u.s. attorney and dhs by a dhs by a

bunch involved. it was heartwarming to see that and we'll feel more secure when that's true. say it was over. >> thank you. the of his out there after 9/11 and that probably surprised a lot of people to the muslim american community. we appreciate that. i think senator collins would like one or two more questions. ensure you have faced worse challenges than the two of us. just for a few minutes more. i want to ask your question, which is the three of you, we've had a lot of good testimony, could discussion in a positive way of what we've accomplished over 10 years. look to the next year and each of you let me know what your top one or two priorities are but what is not done to your satisfaction yet in terms of

your department, bureau and thunder. >> mr. chairman, our department has so many elements to it, but i think over the next year we will continue to improve and expand information sharing and analytic capability with the fbi, nctc and other agencies in the apartment and outside the capital area to the rest of the country. i believe cyber will be an increasing area of focus for us as we deal with those direct dirt mueller said the emerging threat in the sabre world. i think we will see movement towards a more risk-based screening process for passengers, particularly in the environment. and lastly, we want to move towards -- we call it and you heard in the video that you

begin the hearing which dhs taking -- we are still in the building process, the knitting together processes involved with putting 22 agencies together. i think what's even more progress in the year ahead. >> you've got a busy year ahead of you. director mueller. >> for severe capability internally and externally so while we have to keep for a variety of reasons different database structures, there has to be the ability to pull information easily from databases. >> it is a little background. >> if we have information off of fisa intercept, the minimization procedures to whom that information can be disseminated requires us to keep it in a separate database. but what you want to do is give the analysts the ability to understand if there's anything in the database on a particular individual e-mail address for

the link. while for a variety of reasons we do keep separate databases, whether security or statutory direction, there has to be the center federate databases on both internally as well as externally, which is where nctc is a great deal of its effort. we have to get her own houses in order to be a platform for the government as a whole to be able to do this kind of search capability. >> do you need statutory changes to do that? >> it would be difficult in terms of taking the fisa statute. we've just come through a date of the patriot act and i'm not sure it was something that would get easily while conceivably you could do it, it's unlikely to happen shortly and consequently we have utilized technology. secondly as we pointed out, his

essay brewing adjusting organizations to address the favors that in new ways that will make us more effective as a united entity to address the sabre thread is going to be huge issue. thirdly, assuring that new mechanisms of communication being developed daily by the new entrepreneurial information technology capabilities by various companies, i don't want to necessarily mean in here, but it's not just the communication carriers. google, facebook, all of them. the necessity of assuring in response to recorder curcumin is the right to obtain communications, there is capability of those persons and entities to respond to court orders is something i'll be addressing. we cannot afford him as we say, to go dark. the last thing very quickly is

with enhanced technology comes additional administrative organs. one of the challenges they had this to make certain agents are people spending times on the substance and removing the administrative burdens and obstacles to getting out and doing work we want to pay them to do. and that for us is an issue we continue to say. >> on that third one about gaining access to information from the unconventional, the new communications media, that might require legislation. >> it will. i think you may see some suggestion with regard to legislation. i want to say most of the companies are patriotic and working on capabilities, but we have to make certain we have that access. not access. we have to make certain that the capability to respond to court

orders. >> right, of course, a lot of times those recipients of court orders want the statute to make clear their applications. mr. olson. >> taking up on the theme of information sharing, similarly at nctc as you know very well the founding principle was to break down the silos of information to provide a place for information from ths debate make significant progress through bringing people together in one place from each of those organizations. the next step in the process is to have the information. we have much of it. continue to gather information and have it available where we then can do exactly what director mueller top it out at nctc, search across databases, not have an analyst to one

database pagoda with her to be able to find connections that are so elusive they been able to search seamlessly across all this databases. that's a significant priority for us. second dimension to pursue groups. there's a lot of potential. this is something in 2010 to fill a gap by looking for a less obvious connections among people and then be able to tip those leads off to the operational entities that can follow, whether it's cia, fbi or dhs. there's a lot of potential there and i'll continue to focus on that. third is an area of significance to both of you and not discounting violent extremism. this is an area where nctc has played a vital role and will play an increasingly important role in the next year as we do a couple of things. the one i live right now is to

develop implementation plans for the administration's new framework strategy for countering violent extremism. we done a number of things on the intelligence side and on the operational planning side to prepare law enforcement to understand the radicalization process and help communities understand where to look for threats within their neighborhoods and communities, but there is a significant amount of work to do anything nctc will nctc will play an important role. >> senator collins and i just sent a letter to mr. brennan expressing disappointment with a lot of the report and a lot of the disappointment had to do with the lack of detail, and lack of clarity as he read it about who was in charge, but also what is going to happen. insofar as you are going to put some flesh on the bones or whatever the metaphor is,

clarify that urgently that would be very important. it's interesting how much cybercomes up and also these remarkable instruments of data analysis retention, which have helped us enormously in the last week with the latest threat stream. or we can yet do better at that as the boss that. thank you. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. olson, let me just take up where you left off because i was going to talk to you about who is the lead for countering violent extremism? i know that the white house is the lead for policy and put out what is in our view a disappointing disappointingly, sketchy strategy, but it's the nctc going to be the operational

lead for implementation? >> we will not read the operational implementation. the national security staff and counsel at the white house as the lead for developing the policy and we at nctc play a role and will be front and center developing an implementation plan, putting flesh on the bones for the broad policy. but the agencies and departments with specific authorities and responsibilities in each area will be responsible for operationally implementing that plan. i think the overall picture is centralized policy development, the decentralized implementing because the agencies that have a particular expertise or role that they can take advantage of. >> i share the concern of the chairman that we don't have one

person who's accountable to congress who's in charge of the strategy. one of the problems of running it out of the white house is the individual from present staff are not accountable to congress. so for us to exercise oversight in this extremely important area becomes the impossible. going to push with the chairman to continue to argue that we need one person accountable to congress was clearly in charge of the strategy of four cbe and for homegrown terrorism. i'm glad that nctc is involved, but it sounds like everybody has a piece of it. he understood my that's desirable, but there's got to be one person in charge. i know we are wrapping up, let

me switch to other issues ever to touch on before we adjourn. i too am pleased to hear the priority placed on cybersecurity. whether i like it to threats that we face that i feel we are least prepared for cyberattacks, homegrown terrorism and chemical biological weapons topped my list. .. which in turn prevents the private sector from sufficiently addressing the threat, and how to address it. he says, let me be clear this stuff is overprotected. it is far easier to learn about physical threats from u.s.

government agencies than to then to learn about cyberthreats. and that is one reason the chairman and i along with senator carper had introduced a bill that mirrors many of the recommendations of the department of homeland security and the administration tot of require the government to shareo actionable cyber information with the private sector. i would like to ask theth secretary, director mueller, what you see as the biggest impediments to the timelythe sharing biggest impediments to the timely sharing of the cyber threat information can also cyber breeches with the private sector and other agencies and i will start with you, director.

>> [inaudible] >> on the one hand there is reluctance on the business community to share breach information with the government. that i think is going to be addressed and we would want to go to dhs and ourselves so we can work quickly on that. it's interesting you see blight haydon articulating this view he probably couldn't answer the other side of it and if he were here two years ago he would have been answering the other side of it. >> i appreciate that also. spec there is a very substantial an imperative to the extent possible we share the information that will allow the private industry to protect itself from cyber intrusions and to the extent that it does not disclose the capabilities that we need elsewhere it is not only a criminal case for an intrusion in the united states, it is also often a national security risk

at which we have to treat as a national security risk and other capabilities of their then you do not want to be disclosed because you would lose that capability and so it is sometimes a difficult balancing act to make certain we push out as much information as we can and we should but there are good reasons often you cannot get sufficient detail as you would like but you can get a generalized warning but there are equities on the other side we can't go into here. i do believe and i think secretary can probably talk to we are making great strides in trying to make available information the two were three years ago we would not have been able to do and are currently doing. >> madam secretary, do you have anything to add? >> first of all i hope the legislation moves forward. i think it's a good piece of legislation and necessary to

establish authorities and jurisdiction and the like so we will work with you in that endeavor. we need to keep focused on building our information sharing capabilities at the dhs and through the u.s. certification facility and others we have worked with the dod on our ability to use some of the assets of the nsa and under appropriate circumstances but for the whole cyber arena from the dhs perspective is going to be a growth area and the information sharing with the private sector particularly political infrastructure aspects of the private sector will be the key for us and as the director said getting information that in a timely fashion and all of this needs to move very, very quickly. >> finally, i want to touch on the decision to make public the

threat of the last weekend. the sergeant-at-arms sent out an e-mail message to i believe all employees of the senate as well as to all senators in which he talks about the announcement and says the announcement was, quote, well intentioned, perhaps helpful but not very well coordinated. this obviously worries me because the sergeant-at-arms is a key player when it comes to protecting the washington, d.c. area. we followed up with the sergeant-at-arms and first let me say that he said coordination is 100% better than it used to be. the fbi's local office worked

very closely with them but here's what he said happened. first, she was told as were we i might add, that the information was classified and closely held and as he said that's pretty typical and an understanding approach. but then he said that the decision to go public caught them off-guard and they were out of the lubber and essentially it sounds like they learned about it on television. what is your response to this critique and again so that i'm not taking this out of context he did praise the local fbi office and he did say that coordination is 100% better than it used to be but he said the decision to go public took them

by surprise to and seems that shouldn't have happened given what a key player the sergeant-at-arms is since he controls the capitol police. matsuzaka to become if you would. >> i will go first on that. it's difficult to respond out of context. the decision was made to share the threat because it was credible and specific, and to share it through the joint there was a joint information bulletin with the fbi to share it out through the law enforcement particularly in the affected areas which are d.c. and new york which are the targets of the threat stream. there wasn't a public television

of the threat because the information was already getting out and action was taken in response to that when he says he didn't know it was going public, if he means there was some kind of public press release whatever, there wasn't. there was information shared through the law enforcement channels as it should have been for law enforcement to be aware of what the threat was and what to watch for, so all i can comment to that is whether or not she received that. i don't know. but that's how the information was put out was through law enforcement channels. >> director mueller? >> we took the position from september 11th to the extent we have threat information, and imminent threat information that is specific to a particular

jurisdiction, new york, washington, doesn't make any difference the person responsible for securing the communities should have the information and we find a way to get it whether it be a bullet tore through the joint terrorism task force. inevitably that opens the circle of persons who have information on that threat. inevitably the person responsible with the new york or washington, d.c., the police chief or otherwise so i have to respond to this threat. and so you will have actions taken in each of the jurisdictions affected raise the public's consciousness. and often as a result of the rays of public consciousness there has to be an explanation of why you are doing car stops or have more people on the street, and it is that cycle where the information comes out without a conscious decision not one particular point in time okay we are going to go public. the questions come in and the decision is made that you have to give as much as you can to put it in particular context. it's happened once it's happened

50 times since september 11th. if i get one criticism from stevan and local law enforcement is always director, why do i have to hear about it on cnn? and the fact of the matter is a combination of wanting to inform people who are immediately affected with that understanding you open the circle would is going to be on cnn sooner rather than later. it's a fact of life. >> it is, and i don't disagree in any way with the decision to go public because i think you want more people on the alert. i think you want the average citizen watching for suspicious activity, but it does strike me if a person such as the sergeant-at-arms and in such a key position to not know that there was going to be a decision made to go public. so i would be happy to share the e-mail he sent to all of us with

you. >> i would like to see it coming and we will be talking. >> he does an excellent job but let me just be clear on that, which is why i brought up his concern. thank you very much. >> senator collins and of course he was previously the chief before he became the sergeant. so he has background. it's interesting, i don't want to keep you any longer, but there was not a decision really made for instance in the white house to go public with this information. there was a decision made for all the factors you indicate to disseminate, and i will say part of the information that you have on the threat to the student will cool law enforcement for official use only, not classified, but the presumption is based on experience that once you do that, people are going to start talking and it's going to find its way to the media. so, everybody got it right?

>> the recipient of the police chief for others responsible for public security has to take steps. if you don't respond to that come the questions asked are going to be why are you taking these steps, so it's the response to questions that inevitably buildup has you go forward and the local communities or the federal community takes the steps necessary to address the threat. >> but wasn't there a press statement actually put out by the department homeland security? when we were briefed by john brennan, she told us dhs was going to be the lead on the public announcement. >> yes that was later on in the sequence, that wasn't at the immediate time that we put out the document as i recall. >> senator collins already said this we both felt that this was a case where the balance of public interest and safety wasn't putting this information out, not everything that there

had been a specific credible unconfirmed threat. okay, before we close, senator rockefeller filed a statement with the committee which i want to include without objection in the record of which he discusses the importance of allocating the d blocks to the first responders and i agree with him totally. i want to thank all of you. it's impressive work that you and everyone has done over the ten years. we are at a time of national pessimism because the economy but it seems to me if people in the country will think back to 9/11 and think what we've done since, we have new organizations here and the third the government to medically transformed homeland security.

i don't think there's some other country in the world that could have done it as well as we did without being too explicit there are other countries in the world, close friends of ours who probably should have done a lot of what we did and haven't yet but in any case we all have reason to be grateful to you and again everybody who works with you on our behalf, so it's been a jury informative and encouraging as we all know and we look forward to continuing to [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in this morning after an hour of general speeches. we expect work on a bill dealing with trade preferences for goods from developing countries. the package of provisions is expected to be edged a day that would extend programs to provide benefits to u.s. workers who lose their jobs due to increased foreign competition. votes are possible. the senate of course the recess from 12:30 to 2:15 for the usual party lunches. also we are learning center terminal lamar alexander announced he is stepping down this morning as the republican

conference chair according to politico. the former two-time presidential candidate has played a central role in shaping gop strategy during prison obama's time in office. he will be making an announcement again this morning. now to live coverage of u.s. senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.

eternal lord god, we believe that you will never fail or forsake us, but help us to never take your love and faithfulness for granted. empower our senators to be good stewards of your many blessings and of the responsibilities and opportunities you have given them. open their minds and give them a vision of the unlimited possibilities available to those who trust you as their guide. incline their ears to hear your voice and fill them with your power, o lord of hosts.

you are the king eternal, immortal, invisible, who alone is wise. you deserve the honor and glory forever and ever. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate.

the clerk: washington, d.c., september 20, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jeanne shaheen, a senator from the state of new hampshire, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks the senate will be in morning business for an hour and the republicans will control the first half. and the majority will control the time half. following that morning business the senate will be in consideration of h.r. 2832, which is the generalized system of preferences act. that is a vehicle for trade adjustment assistance we're going to be working on. we're going to recess today from 12:30 to 2:15 for our weekly caucus meetings. at 2:30 today, senator heller will be recognized to deliver his maiden speech in the senate, work through amendments to trade adjustment assistance. we'll notify senators when votes

are scheduled. madam president, i see on the floor today my friend lamar alexander from the great state of tennessee. and i just received a news flash that he was going to relinquish his leadership position and stay in the senate and run for re-election. i don't know all the reasons for his doing this, but i want to record to be spread with the fact that i have found lamar alexander to be one of the most thoughtful people i've ever served with in the senate. there are many issues he gets no credit for that were resolved because of his ability to see the big picture. we had this really big issue dealing with the so-called option with the rules changes and he stepped in, completely

out of the limelight and because of his idea we resolved that issue. there are many, many other examples just like that. he's a unique person in this body, he accomplishes a great deal and gets credit for not a lot and that's unfortunate but that's who i is and that's who he's always been. so i know that he will continue being a stalwart in the senate. i look forward to his -- working with him, but i look forward mostly to his sense of fairness which he has been so very, very exemplary in during my time with him in the senate. 60 years ago, this nation's armed forces were segregated by race. 35 years ago, women weren't allowed to attend our nation's military academies. and until today in fact last night at midnight, thousands and thousands of qualified, dedicated men and women were

barred from military service or expelled from the armed forces because they were honest about their sexual orientation. today i'm glad to say that the time is past when americans willing to give their lives to defend this nation could be turned away from service because of whom they loved. today, "don't ask, don't tell" is no longer the law of the land. for 17 years we've asked our soldiers to defend a flag that stands for liberty and justice for all and then required some of those soldiers to keep who they really were a secret. and in too many cases we've robbed them of the right to fight for their country altogether. madam president, listen to this staggering number: more than 13,000 american service men have been discharged because of this law. that law has been in effect just a short period of time but more than 13,000 have been discharged because of this law. which institutionalized discrimination against openly gay soldiers, sailors, marines

and airmen and i say openly gay, this really wasn't the case. some were suspect, there was a long interview in -- on the public broadcasting this morning about a woman who was discharged at age 22 for someone reporting that they had seen her in a bar with another woman. we'll never know how many people that is, capable men and women, were never offered patriotic service, they couldn't, because the law exposed them to career-ruining discrimination. so we have the 13,000 plus, plus thousands of others who said i'm -- no need to do this because i'll have to live a lie. the military's highest commanders and the vars majority of service members agree we're better off knowing we have thest bnd greatest volunteers. there is no place for

intolerance in our great nation. and certainly not in the armed forces. tasked with protecting it. so i'm happy to say that today our military policies and national values are in line. from today forward no qualified man or woman willing to fight for a nation founded on the principles of tolerance and equality will ever again be denied the right to do so. madam president, on wednesday the house, we're told will send us a continuing resolution to fund the government through november 18. i was disappointed to see the house shortchanged the federal emergency management agency, and it is a real, real shortchange. by failing to provide the funding to adequately help americans whose lives have been devastated by floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. madam president, it's staggering to understand the depth of the concern that people

have. yesterday morning i received a dprawl kent conrad, the senator from north dakota to proceeded to explain to me about a city in north dakota by the name of minot, north dakota. a town of about 40,000 people. i'm sorry, 25% of the homes in minot, north dakota are under water. most of those under water are ruined forever. these are not big mansions. they're homes, people have lived in, sometimes for very, very -- for a very, very long period of time. yesterday i was speaking to senator hoeven who certainly knows north dakota as well as anyone, served as governor there, now in the senate, and we were talking about the flood. and of course one of the things people are saying, why didn't congress and the president plan for all this? well, as senator hoeven described in some detail, how do you -- how do you estimate

something that has never, ever, ever happened before? not a 50-year flood took place in north dakota. not a hundred-year flood, not a 500-year flood. it's something that has never, ever happened, ever. and this in spite of the fact that they've built some dams, even some in canada stopped the flooding, it didn't matter. this was so immense and never had happened before that this in north dakota, sparsely populated state has been devastated by these unnatural, you say, but certainly unusual floods who have ravaged that state. that's not the only state. many states have been hammered hard. who would ever have thought a year ago that a relatively small community, joplin, missouri, would be hit by almost 300-mile

an hour winds, and the winds didn't just whip through, they roiled around for such a time that they basically destroyed that town. there are many other examples of what has happened with being unable to determine what would happen in the future. suffice it to say, we provided funds last week here in the senate to help americans whose lives have been devastated by floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, and other natural calamities. we passed a bipartisan bill granting fema and other agencies that help disaster victims need, an additional $6.9 billion. that's probably not enough. frankly, madam president, after the committee did their work, reported the bill out of some $6 billion, i asked the

different subcommittees to find out what additionally was needed. they came back with another -- another $3 billion. we pared that down because we wanted to keep within the agreement we had in the deficit reduction act which set that at $7 billion and we were slightly under that. that's why we came in with that figure. that funding, $6.9 billion while it doesn't give everyone everything will help rebuild after several costly natural disasters, not the least of which is hurricane irene. tomorrow when the senate receives the house bill to fund the government for six more weeks we'll amended it with the language that the estimate passed, the senate fema legislation. president obama has declared disasters in all but two states and fema is quickly running out of money to help american families and communities recover. i talked to mr. fugate, the head of fema last thursday and

he said they have enough money to last probably until september 25. that's even on a very, very narrow plane that they're working on, they stopped the work in joplin, missouri, stopped the work because of the devastation that happened in the gulf previously. the only money they're spending now threels with tropical storm low and -- deals with tropical storm lee and hurricane irene. it's desperate. i know this amendment will enjoy the support of my republican colleagues as it did just last week. we had 10 that stepped forward and it was very important they did that. last week a group of bipartisan senators agreed that helping communities destroyed by natural disasters was too important for to let politics get in the way. americans have sent a message, madam president madam president, to congress that no issue is more important to them than jobs. but for republicans, jobs creation is less important than slashing spending on initiatives

that create jobs and the social security and medicare benefits seniors have earned. democrats believe we can reduce the deficit because abandoning job creation. we can make smart, strategic cuts that won't further slow down our struggling economy while protecting an advancing initiatives that create jobs. that's why president obama has released detailed proposals to create two million jobs now while reducing the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade. but many republicans have criticized both proposals even before looking at their substance. it seems that they're more concerned with protecting millionaires, billionaires, hedge fund managers and private jet owners than fighting for the middle class. they claim it's class warfare to ask the wealthiest 400 americans -- madam president, the wealthiest 400 americans -- who made an average, an average, these 400, of $271 million each, each.

to pay the same tax rate as librarians, police officers, air traffic controllers, and others. secretaries, like mr. buffett talked about. the truth is republicans are just defending the economic policies that besieged the middle class for years. is it class warfare to ask middle-class americans to get by on less while those 400 americans are paying a lower rate than secretaries and janetors who work for them? let me explain this as well as i can. wwe will do whatever we can to protect the middle class and seniors, even if it means that the rich have to pay a little more than they do now. even if if means c.e.o.'s and hedge fund managers making hundreds of millions of dollars every year have to contribute the same amount or more as teachers and firefighters whose salaries are a fraction of the size of theirs. it's fairness, simple fairness.

14 million americans out of work. 14 million reasons to put job creation ahead of tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. as the economist and former labor secretary robert reich said, "true patriotism isn't cheap. it is about taking on the burden of keeping america going." mr. mcconnell: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: everyone knows the top issue on the minds of most americans right now is jobs. what i've aid is that one thing we could all do right now to help spur job creation is to pass the three free trade agreements with panama, colombia and south korea. republicans in congress have been urging the president to pass these agreements for nearly three years and yet they've languished on his desk for no good reason. it is time send them up so we can act. in a moment when 14 million americans are looking for work, it's indefensible for the white

house to demand a vote on trade adjustment assistance as a condition for action. still, i and others have degreed to allow it -- have agreed to allow it so we can finally move ahead. and it is my expectation based on the understanding that i have with the administration that the president will stop drag his feet soon and submit all three of them for a quick approval. at long last, u.s. businesses that want to expand here at home but which have been held back by the president's refusal to act will be able to compete on a level playing field in these markets. and we'll create jobs in the process. but these agreements, while helpful, are not enough. in order to create the kind of jobs we need, we need more trade deals than these three. and that's why i've been a strong advocate for granting this president the same trade promotion authority that every other president has enjoyed since 1974.

also known as fast-track, t.p.a. creates expedited procedures for congressional consideration of trade agreements that the administration negotiates with our trading partners. t.p.a. has long had bipartisan support and led to numerous trade agreements with 17 new countries during the bush administration, including the three we hope to consider shortly. unfortunately, democrats and their union allies allowed t.p.a. to expire in 2007, and this president has made no effort whatsoever to revive it. without t.p.a., the u.s. will likely never agree to another deal. the unions will make sure of it. and we've seen what happens then. after the north american free trade agreement passed in 1993, t.p.a. expired. in the eight years that followed, the u.s. did nothing while other countries moved ahead integrating themselves in

the global economy. we can't let that happen again. we can't miss more opportunities to compete in foreign markets with u.s.-made products just because unions don't want to. consider this: while our trade agenda has lapsed, the union union is negotiating 16 trade agreements with 46 countries, according to the business round table. japan is negotiating seven agreements with 38 countries and even china is negotiating 11 agreements with 18 countries. what about the u.s.? well, we've signed none since this administration began and we're actively negotiating only one, a pact that will open opportunities to american businesses and workers across the pacific rim. but i and many of my colleagues and many of our allies overseas

want to know what is the president's plan to enact that one deal if he doesn't ask for, hasn't received, and doesn't even seem to want trade promotion authority? is he ready to watch all these opportunities vanish? we can't allow these opportunities for american jobs to simply drift away. we must reauthorize t.p.a. along with t.a.a. t.p.a. and t.a.a. have moved together historically. in 1974 when t.p.a. was created, in 1988 when it was reauthorized, and again in 2002 when t.a.a. was expanded to its current pre-stimulus levels. and that's why i'm offering an amendment that will grant this president -- this president -- trade promotion authority through 2013. the same term that the democrats are insisting we reauthorize trade adjustment assistance. my amendment builds into the same accountability to congress

and the need to consult with congress that previous t.p.a.'s have had. on legislation offered by a bipartisan pair of trade leaders, senator portman and senator lieberman. now, you're going to hear democrats arguing that we haven't had enough time to carefully consider this expansion of trade promotion authority and work on the negotiating objectives we generally include in the bill. so i would remind them that i first called for t.p.a. last may. since that time, i've heard nothing from my democratic colleagues or the white house about their interest in renewing this authority. there's been zero outreach, and when i suggested i'd even be willing to support an extension of t.a.a. if we could reauthorize t.p.a., there was nothing. in my view, if the white house won't show leadership on this issue, if they're too worried about owning other free trade agreements or as being seen by

some of their allies as promoting them too aggressively, it's my view that we ought to help them get there. and that's why i'm offering this amendment today, to show the world that some in congress are ready to move forward and lower the barriers that keep american goods out of foreign countries and which american consumers all benefit from our integration into the world economy. with 14 million americans out of work and thousands of americans looking for opportunities to sell american-made goods around the world, we can't afford to wait like we did on these three free trade agreements while the administration makes up its mind that american jobs are more important than appeasing their union allies. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes

each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final havment the senator -- iks. mr. alexander:? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: madam president, i thank my friend for, the republican leader, for the remarks i am about to make. i thank senator corker and several of my other colleagues for on very short notice coming to the senate floor for these brief remarks. madam president, next january following the annual retreat of republican senators, i will stope down from the senate republican leadership. my colleagues have elected me as republican conference chairman three times, and i will have completed four years or the equivalent of two two-year terms at the time. the reason for doing that is this: stepping down from the republican leader will liberate

me to spend more time trying to work for results on issues that i care the most about. that means stopping runway way regulations, runare away spending, but it also means confronting the timidity that allows us to -- or that allows health care spending to squeeze out support for roads, support for research, support for scholarships and other government functions that make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs. i want to do more to make the senate a more effective place to address serious issues. for four gleers our caucus my leadership job has been this: toirks help the leader succeed, to help individual republicans succeed, to look for a consensus within our caucus and to suggest a message. i have enjoyed that, but there are different ways to offer

leadership in the united states senate. and i've concluded that after nine years, that this is now the best way for me to mik make a contribution. it boils down to this: serving in this body is a rare privilege. i'm prying to make the best use -- i'm trying to make the best use of that time while ip i am here. for the same reason i plan to step down in january from the leadership, i will not be a candidate for leadership in the next congress. but i do intend to be more, not less, in the thick of resolving issues, and i do plan to run for reelection to the united states senate in 12014. -- in 2014. these are serious times. every american's jobs is on the line. the united states still produces about 23% of world's wealth, even though we only have about 5% of the world's people. but all around the world people are realizing that there's nothing different about their brains than our brains and

they're using their brain power to try to achieve some of the same kind of standard of living that we've enjoyed here. as a result of this, some have predicted that within a decade, for the first time since the 1870's, the united states will not be the world's largest economy. they say china will be. my goal is to help keep the united states of america the world ph's strongest economy. now, madam president, there are two other matters that are relevant to the decision that i'm making today that i'd like to address. the first is this: when i first ran for the united states senate in 2002, i said to the people of tennessee -- and they weren't surprised by this -- that i will serve with conservative principles and an independent attitude. i intend to continue to serve in the very same way. i'm a very republican republican. i grew up in the mountains of tennessee and still live there a

in a congressional district that's never elected a democrat to congress since abraham lincoln was president of the united states. my great-grandfather was once asked his politics. he said, i'm a republican. i fought for the union. i vote like i shot. i've been nominated five times by tennessee republicans to serve in public office. i've imn elected three times by senate republicans as conference chairman. if i could get a 100% republican solution of any of our legislative issues, i would do it in a minute. but i know that the senate usually requires 60 votes for a solution on serious issues, and we simply can't get that with only republican votes or only democratic votes. second, by stepping down from the leadership, i expect to be more, not less, aggressive on the issues. and i look forward to that. the senate is created to be the place where the biggest issues producing the biggest

disagreements are argued out, and i don't buy for one minute that these disagreements create some sort of unhealthy lack of civility in the united states senate. i think those who believe that the debates today in our senate are more frock schuss than the debates in our -- are more fractious than the debates in our political history have forgotten what adams and jefferson said of one noamplet they've forgotten that vice president burr killed former secretary of treasury alexander hamilton. they've forgotten that congressman houston was walking down the streets of washington one day, came across a congressman from ohio who opposed andrew jackson's indian policy and starting caning him, for which he was cren siewmpletd they've forgotten that there was a south carolina congressman who came to the floor of senate and nearly killed behighting him with a stirks the senator from massachusetts and they've forgot than another senator from massachusetts named henry cabot

lodge stood on the floor of the senate and said of the united states of presiden president, it man. they forgot about henry clay's compromises and the debates that were held during the army mccarthy days and what of the watergate debates and vietnam debates? the main difference today between the debates in washington and the debates in history are that today, because we have so much media, everybody hears everything instantly. if you would notice, most of the people who are shouting at each other on television or radio are or the internet have never been elected to anything. it would help if we in the senate knew each other better across party lines. but to suggest that we should be more timid in debating the biggest issues before the american people would ignore the function of the senate and would

ignore -- and would ignore our history. the truth is that united states senators debate divisive issues with excessive civility. madam president, i've enjoyed my four years in the republican leadership. i thank my colleagues for that privilege. i now look forward to spending more time working with all senators to achieve results on the issues that i care about the most, the issues that i believe will help -- will determine for our next generation what kind of economy we will have, what our standard of living will be foreour families and what our national security will be. i thank the president and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i say to my friend of 40 years even though there are a number of colleagues here on the floor i'm confident we all agree this is not a eulogy that we're about to engage in, but really i think i have a great sense of relief

that my friend is going to run again in 2014 and continue to make an extraordinary contribution to the senate and to america. when i first met lamar, he was at the white house, i had just come here as a legislative assistant to a newly elected senator. he had already accomplished a lot, been elected to phi beta kappa at vanderbilt, graduated from new york university law school, clerkd for a well known circuit judge, been involved in howard baker's first campaign, helped him set up his first office, and that was before i met him. since i've met him as many of you are already aware, it's hard to think of anybody -- hard to think of anybody who's done more things well. he went home in 1970 and ran a

successful campaign for i think the first republican governor of tennessee had elected certainly since the civil war. ran for governor himself in a very bad year in 1974, didn't work out too well. but one of the things we know about our colleague lamar is he's pretty persistent so he tried it again in 1978. elected governor, re-elected governor in 1982, spectacular record. and then he did a very unusual thing and i remember knowing about it at the time, i kept up with him since we had met years before, we were here in washington, he took his entire family and went to australia for six months. put the kids in school there. and actually wrote a book called "six months off" which i read then. now, i don't know how many books you sold, how many books senator alexander sold, but it was a fascinating review of

basically just taking a break, going somewhere else, doing something entirely new before getting back on the career treadmill that we of course knew he would get back on. so once the australian experience was over, this extraordinarily accomplished and diverse individual became president of the university of tep. that was back when they used to play football. and then president bush 41 asked him to become secretary of education. so he was a cabinet member. so by the way i think i left out at his mother's insistence, he became quite proficient at piano he's a fabulous piano player and musician. my mother let me quit, that was the only mistake she made in an

otherwise perfect job of raising me but your mother by insisting you continue to take piano gave him that dimension as well. so here we've got a guy who has been governor, president of his university, a member of the cabinet, and if that were not enough, he went into the private sector and started an extraordinarily successful business. which did very well. and so i expect that our colleague from tennessee thought that his public career was over, but then fred thompson decide decided he wanted to do something else and all of a sudden he was in the united states senate. not just in the senate but then becomes a leader in the senate in a very short period of time. and we've had an opportunity to get to know our colleague, it's hard to think of anybody more intelligent, more accomplished and also more likable than lamar

alexander. i must say to my good friend from tennessee, i'm relieved that you're not leaving the senate. this is not a eulogy. but it is an opportunity, i think, for those of house have known and admired you for a long time to just recount your extraordinary accomplishment during a lifetime of public service. and so it's been my honor to be your friend and i'm going to continue to be your friend and i'm glad you'll continue to be our colleague. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. alexander: madam president, i thank the leader and i'm deeply grateful. i have great confidence in derrick dooley, he's a fine football coach at the university of tennessee, they're playing very good football and i intend to be at my usual seats at the georgia game in two weeks. the presiding officer: the other senator from tennessee. mr. corker: madam president, thank you. i want to say to my colleague i certainly enjoyed your comments

today. i'm excited for you. i sit very close to you here in the senate and i'm with you a great deal. i do plan on keeping a cane out of your reach for a few days. but i very much appreciate your service and leadership to the republican party here in the united states senate, and i think that what you've done in that position is to bring out the best in all of us in the best way that you can. i'm excited for you and i look at this as a great day for the senate, for the united states senate. it's a great day for our country. this is a great day for the -- for the state of tennessee, and i can tell you paced on the conversations that we've had and the way that i know you the united states senate is going to become very quickly a more interesting place to serve. and for all of us who have been

concerned about our lack of ability to solve our nation's greatest problems, i look at what you've done today as a step in the direction towards us, being able as a body to more responsibly deal with the pressing issues that you outlined in your talk. i thank you for having the courage to step down from a position that many republican senators would love to have. i thank you for the way that you serve our country. i thank you for the example that you have been to so many in your public service in our state and our country, and i thank you for being my friend.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. burr: i rise to echo the comments about the contributions of lamar alexander, a friend, a colleague, but somebody who has had an impact not just on the state of tennessee but on the united states of america. and i think one of the toughest things that a member of the congress can do is to, one, step down from leadership, or two, voluntarily leave the body. and i think it says more about lamar alexander than any comments that can be made that he understands where he's going and i think he stated it very well. his contribution on the future

of this country is what he's most concerned with, and that's why this country is blessed to have leaders like that. we welcome him back in the ranks of the normal, the general population of what has been the asylum of late and i hope that lamar will be a great influence on our ability to get the body of deliberative debate and participation back, and that's certainly his quest. one of his passions, though, is education and i was shocked he didn't mention in his litany of areas he would delve into but i know earlier last week he and i and others introduced five reforms to k-12 education and when we talk about the future, whether it's senator alexander or myself or others, we say that the future of this country

is really conditional upon how well we educate the next generation. that we make sure that the next generation has the foundational knowledge that they need to compete in the 21st century economy. i think it's safe to say today that our record is not good. just 70% of our high school seniors graduate on time. let me say that again. 70% of our high school seniors will graduate on time. many of those will never go back. they won't cross the goal line. and in today's economy, the likelihood of being invited for a job interview is slim to zero. you see, we've got federal laws that require an employer to accept an application from whoever walks in the door. but when it gets down to the interview process, i can assure you employers when they look at that resume and it doesn't have

high school graduation on it, will certainly invite the others that at least have that threshold of education if not further degrees. so i think we owe it to the next generation to be candid with them and tell them this is a minimum to have an opportunity for unlimited success. if we ever get to a point that this is not about an opportunity of unlimited success, america will have changed greatly. and i think that's one of the passions that senator alexander has, it's why he's so solved in issues like education and he's willing to sacrifice leadership for a greater involvement in the policies. in those bills that were introduced last week, there were two that lamar and i did together. and let me just share with my colleagues what those bills do.

today, we have 97 authorized programs, 59 of them are funded, and they're all funded individually. that means that we make available money to state and consequently to a school district, but their requirement is to access that money they have to do exactly what we structured in the program. many schools don't need that program, and they forego that money. and yet on the senate floor, we've debated frequently the need to get more resources into especially-at-risk school districts to bolster that foundational education. what we simply do is we leave title 1 alone. it's targeted at a specific population. but we take all these other 59

programs that last year were funded and we melt them into two pots of money. one pot is designed for improvement in teesk and learning. the other pot is designed for safe and healthy student block grants. and you might say, well, what if a school system doesn't need a fund for improvement of teaching and learning, but they do need more money for safe and healthy students? we allow 100% transferability between those two areas. so if a school system purely needs teaching and learning and they want to focus all of that, they can take all the safe and healthy student block grant money and put it into teaching and learning. at the same token, if a school has a growing title 1 population, we allow 100%00%

transferability up to the title 1 program. we're trying to do what school as many as have told us year after year, decade after decade, give us more flexibility, let us decide what it is we need for our students to learn. this is not about input. this is about output. this is about focusing on how we improve education to wherever child crosses that goal line of success. that then the foundational knowledge base is so great that they're marketable in whatever direction our economy decides to go. now, the challenging thing for us -- a lot like what senator alexander did today -- he gave up power, a position in leadership. it means the congress has to give up the power of deciding exactly how every school system is going to implement programs. you see, we've got to be big enough to realize that the

one-size-fits-all structure from washington doesn't work, that every school system in america is a little bit unique. and, yeah, we recognize the fact that not every state is necessarily the best if fiduciy of the funds. this legislation only requires the states to siphon off 1.5% of the money. we're not going to build a palace or create a bureaucracy in state capitals in education off of these programs anymore. the intent is to take this money and put it into the classroom, make sure that the skills of the teacher are better, make sure that in fact we're teaching teachers the right way to teach today. i know we're not allowed to have electronics on the senate floor. we hide them in our pockets real

well. kids aren't allowed to have electronics in school. they hide them in their pocket real well. and when we all leave where it's prohibited, this is the first thing we pull out of our pocket. we check our messages, we check sports scores. we check the news. some of us old people make phone calls. but we've got a generation that does nothing but txt. you see, they're different than i am. i'm a little bit different than lamar. and every generation is going to be different. but walk in a classroom today and the first thing that a teacher says is "open your book to pages 44." yet in between the page covers a book, we've got a generation that's never deviled into it. they've gone between the corches of their i pad, their pd5. in their pocket, they read books

and play games. they do it in a different way. it's time for us to recognize that they learn differently because they communicate differently. our ability is to take somebody my age who still has a passion for the classroom and to change the way that they teach through how we take them through continuous education. you see, effectiveness is, in part, connecting with the people that you are yo you're trying to teach. and if we do that in the right way, we're going to be successful. i'm not trying to create the model in washington and to say to the states and localities, here's the only way you can do it. we're trying to give them the flexibility of the money and let them design the programs that they think will work. again, with that, though, it requires us to let go of that power of accountability.

there's -- there's no reason for washington to be accountable for every k-12 system in this country. we can be a partner, and i think the appropriate role is a financial partner, but from accountability, i don't want to be in washington determining whether a school is a pass or a fail, or whether a teacher is highly qualified or not. at best, it's arbitrary that we should come up with something. what i want to do is i want to empower communities, i want to empower parents, i want to empower the business community to say, you determine success and failure. i want to empower principals and administrators. you determine whether teachers are qualified or not. i don't want to sit in washington and define that a pharmacist who's lost their passion to work in a drugstore

can't shift over and become a chemistry teacher in a high school because i've determined they're not qualified to do it. yet day in and date ow i would go into -- yet day in and day out, i would go into the pharmacy and allow them to compound drugs for me. yet they can't go into a classroom and explain to kids how that works or more importantly how the interaction of compounds actually happens. that's not my role. it's not our role. our role is to encourage by making sure that the tools are there for those closest to the problem to come up with solutions. well, what we does last week was a minor step in the right direction. and i hope my colleagues will look at legislation and will entertain cosponsoring it. i hope that the secretary of education will look at it, even though we've had conversations

that continued sings the first of the year and we've go got a ranking member and a chairman engaged in the reauthorization. elementary and secondary education right now and i hope we influence their ability to get some type of an agreement. but i think it's also important to understand that within the context of this are things that all of us know works. let me give you a couple of examples. senator kirk introduced a bill on expansion of charter schools. why is that important? it is not important because we just simply want to create competition with the public model. charter schools have become an incubator of new ideas, of new ways to teach. in houston, texas, some former teach for america students created an academy. and immediately had such success that they exported it to new york.

and their intent was to go from new york to atlanta. and the somehow they happened to stop in north hampton county, north carolina in a little town called gas ton. igas it is beautiful. it's students are at risk. there is no economic griever drn that county but for some reason kip stopped there and create add school. and now we've taken underperforming students and through kip all of them excel. i can taking to charlotte, north carolina, where kip finally found a home and was located next 13 discoer to the elementary school. floss way anybody can -- there is no way that anybody can claim they draw from a different population. they draw from the same school neighborhood. yet if you compare kipp to the traditional elementary school next door, the performance of

those students is off the chart. at some point you have to look at it and say, this model works. how do we replicate it? but we're hung up with one is public and one is charter. wcialtion let me tell you, if we could replicate all of they will to be kipp, i couldn't care what we call them and i would care less about how we funded them. i would only care about what the outcome is. how much students have the education foundation we need? and in kipp's cairks it is almost 100%. one of the big components of kipp is the fact that they plug in to teach for america graduates. teachers who enter the system knowing that for a period of time their agreement is they're going into at-risk areas. they're going in dealing with students that "somebody" has deemed hard to complete the process. they go in with a different

passion. they don't go in surprised with the makeup of the students in their classroom on the first day. they go in expecting this job to be tough, knowing that their creativity and their innovation is going to be challenged. and what we found so far is that for those teacher for america graduates, they end up staying longer than in fact the contractual period of time. they find that it's much easier but also much more satisfying to take the most at-risk and to make sure that they have that education foundation that's needed. that's incorporated in these bills. it's not just left to a simple line-item that in this particular case has been zeroed out in the president's budget. but it can be incorporated into

this where we cannot only fund, we can expand teach for america. with senator kirk's bill, we can expand when kipp is doing. we can challenge other individuals in other areas of the country to create kipp-like models that work. madam president, my challenge today is to assure all members of the united states senate and all americans, our kids deserve us to try. now, we've been dictating from washington for decades. and we continue to see 30%-plus of our kids not reach that goal line. and if they do, they do did in a way that's not necessarily add van tankous to their -- veiningous to their future.

if we want our country to continue to prosper, if we want to continue to be the innovator of the world, we've got to create a pool, a generation of kids where 100% of them are prepared to compete. i think that's exactly why senator alexander stated he was willing to give up th the rein f leadership to be craf involved e solutions that are crafted on this floor and in this congress. that's why i said earlier, america has benefited because we've got people like lamar alexander here. i'm convinced that over the next several months the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education will be front and center. i can only ask my colleagues that they spend the time looking at some of the suggestions that are on the table already.

authorship means nothing to me. it's outcome. change the bill in a way that still stays within this frame with ail be a cosponsor of anything. start to make washington more dominant in the control of how the money is used or what the programs look like, i've been there. we've tried that. not only does it not work, carters have told us -- educators have told us that it is increasingly more frustrating for them and they'll drop out of the system. we've got to create a system that's a magnet for tavment a magnet for people that are passionate like lamar alexander, something that gives us hope in the future that our kids have a better chance of succeeding than they have over the past few decade. i think the bill empowering local educational decision-making act of 2011 is a

start. and i think the next generation is worth the investment of time on the part of our members to look at this legislation and to get behind it. i thank the president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. qu quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: first i would like to talk a little bit about the upcoming fema bill. as i understand it, the house intends to send us a c.r. with fema funding only at the level of $3.65 billion, which is a level that is completely inadequate to meet fema's needs. they intend to put a billion dollars in for 2011, which is more than is actually needed in 2011 but then they ask it be paid for with $1.5 billion, which is not the way mathematics is supposed to work. but the real problem is the total amount of 3.65 is inadequate given the terrible tragedies that we have had over the last several months and

several years. we're still rebuilding from katrina, the joplin tornado was devastating, and of course the storms that hit the northeast, including my beloved state of new york are just awful. it's estimated that just in new york state alone cleanup could now cost -- all the costs would be closer to $2 billion. you can imagine $3.65 billion is not even close to enough. the good news is that what we intend to do here under leader reid's leadership is to take the c. they send us and add to it the very bill that passed last thursday night. which adds approximately $7 billion to fema. that's the amount of money that's needed p. it adds money to the army corps of engineers, the u.s. department of agriculture and the other places that the governors of the states have told us are needed.

and given the fact that ten republicans voted for it, we have every expectation that that amendment will pass and we will send it back to the house. so the house should understand that there will be a measure to adequately fund fema, and we will do that this week. and again, we have every expectation that the ten senators will vote -- the ten republican senators who voted with us last time, thursday night, will cast the same vote on the same exact measure because the disasters in their states are not any less this week than they were last week. the other thing i'd like to address, madam president, is the president's proposal on budget deficit, particularly on the tax side. there are so many arguments being tossed around by many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. yesterday the president put forward a blueprint for the joint committee to consider this

fall, and it included a very commonsense principle, and that is that those very few among us fortunate enough to make over a million dollars a year should pay the same effective tax rates at the end of the day as middle-class households. a number of republicans rejected the president's plan before he even announced it. as soon as it was suggested that we should ask the wealthiest few among us to pay their fair share, many on the other side began labeling it class warfare. apparently, they think they can slap that old label on the president's proposal and be done with it. but their refusal to address the proposal on the merits is revealing. they know they will lose any argument about the policy itself because it makes sense economically and because the american people support it. even republicans in the country, 59% in a recent poll i saw, support the wealthiest among us paying fair share.

support not giving them the continued bush tax break at a time when we have record deficits and we're asking everybody else to sacrifice. and emphatically this is not class warfare. it's not class warfare to fight for the middle class. that's for sure. it's not class warfare to say that we need funding for roads and bridges, for teachers, and that the wealthiest among us should pay their fair share to do it. now, let me ask a question, madam president. is it class warfare when republicans advocate tax cuts for the wealthy? do we call those class warfare? the debate about the progress ivity of the tax code is one that has existed for over a hundred years in this country and there are different policy prescriptions. most democrats and most americans believe that twelty don't -- the wealthy don't pay

their fair share. that is not to begrudge the money they have made. there are lots of wealthy citizens in my state and i'm proud of them. i'm proud they made a lot of money and many of them believe that they should pay fair share. it's not just warren buffett. it is not class warfare to do that. it is not class warfare to advocate tax cuts for the wealthy or tax increases for the middle class. that's not class warfare. and to try and call it this name is unfair. let me make a second point. we have a need to do this. the president is not proposing things like the buffett rule out of vengeance. he said yesterday it's not because anybody looks forward to the prospect of raising taxes or paying more taxes but we do have a consensus that has been reached here, it's one of the few, that is we should reduce the deficit. we all know we have to. there are two ways to do it.

one is by cutting spending, and when we cut spending, it hurts middle-class citizens. middle-class citizens need help to pay for college. wealthy people don't. so if you cut student loans or pell grants or stafford loans that go to the middle class, it's not going to affect wealthy citizens. they can afford college themselves but it affects the middle class. when you cut medicare, it doesn't hurt the wealthy. they can afford any doctor, hospital, they want. god bless them. they've earned their money, they deserve that. we don't have a system that mandates everyone has the same. but it sure hurts the middle class. so the bottom line is very simple: if everyone has to pay their fair share so we can get the deficit down, the only way the wealthy pay their fair share is by making sure that their tax

rates are at least the same as average americans and perhaps should be a little bit higher. there's a choice. we don't do this because we want to raise taxes. certainly not because we think the wealthy have gotten unfair advantage. that's a different argument. we do it -- and i don't believe that. i'm proud when new yorkers or americans climb the ladder up and make a lot of money due to hard work and their ideas. we do it because we don't want to lay off more teachers, we don't want to see our infrastructure crumble, we don't want to say we can't create jobs, and yet we don't want to increase deficit spending. and the only way if you want to keep the deficit down but keep our schools good and our infrastructure good and our basic research good, the only way to do it is ask the wealthy to pay a fair share. that's why we do it. that's not class warfare. that's a policy debate which we welcome.

finally, i'd say one other thing. i think our republican colleagues from a political point of view -- i just want to sum up that point. e.p.a. either we ask big oil companies to give up special subsidies or we gut education and medical research. either we ask the he wealthiest americans to pay their fair share or we'll have to ask seniors to pay more for medicare. we can't do both if we want to deep the deficit in line and americans, middle-class americans know this. we know their median income is declining, we know the only place on the economic spectrum where incomes are going up is the very highest end and we know that the right policy is to make those folks at the high end pay a fair share. one final point, madam president. my colleagues are in for a rude awakening. i've talked to a couple of the people who study the polling data and what average americans think. let me tell you what the average american thinks when they hear the term class warfare.

they think it means war on the middle class and that the wealthy get away with things and they don't. so when our colleagues talk about class warfare, maybe it resonates with a few on the hard right among the very wealthy who don't want to pay any taxes at all, we've heard from them, lord knows, enough in this place but to the middle class it means that the middle class is being beleaguered, not being helped and even being attacked by circumstances beyond their control. so when we say that the wealthiest should pay their fair share, middle class americans will not see that as class warfare. they will not. they will understand what we're doing. and i am so glad that the president has decided to take this fight to the american people. it's a fight where we are on their side. that's what all my experience shows, when i go around new york, that's what it shows.

and the polling data shows. and we are doing what's right for the future of this country and for our children and grandchildren. so let's have the debate, and let's dispel this idea that simply because you want the wealthy to pay your fair sure, you dislike them, it's class warfare, it's negative towards them. it's not. it's the right thing to do for all americans to make the pie grow in america and not have the various parts of america fight with one another because medicare is being cut, teachers are being cut and the deficit is going up and hurting our children and grandchildren. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent, i have seven unanimous consent requests for committees to meet today during the session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders and i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, i

want to thank my colleague from new york and i'd like to ask how much time is remaining in morning business on the democratic side. the presiding officer: 19 minutes. mr. durbin: thank you very much, madam president. let me thank my colleague from new york for his statement about the challenges we face. i have been involved for over a year and a half in deficit reduction talks, a lot -- on a bipartisan basis with the bowles-simpsonsons commission, the gang of six, now the gang of 38 i believe was the last number, number of democratic and republican senators who have publicly stated that they are willing to move forward in a process based on the principles of the bowles-simpson commission. at a time when most americans have given up hope that congress will ever work on a bipartisan basis to solve our problems, i hope that our effort will be viewed as positive and helpful to the super committee's work. we are doing everything we can to make sure that they are successful and they have a very difficult assignment and a

difficult timetable. in the meantime, though, i understand as the senator from new york, my colleague, spoke earlier, that if we are serious about deficit reduction, it not only must involve cuts in spending but it also must involve revenue and a serious look at the future of entitlement programs. currently social security untouched will pay every promised benefit for the next 25 years, with a cost-of-living adjustment. then it luncheons into trouble, 22% cut in benefits if we don't do something. the same cannot be said for medicare. as important as it is rs it has about 12 years of solvency. medicaid, which is a very critical health insurance program for millions of americans, is threatened by state revenue declines and all of the problems that we have here in washington with our own deficit. and so these three entitlement programs need to be viewed in an

honest context to keep them strong, to protect the basic benefit structure that underlies each of these bills and laws, and we need to do that as well. we need to put it all on the table, madam president. it's spending cuts, it's revenue, it's entitlement reform. it's aall has to come together. when the president says that the wealthiest among us should be willing to help us through this crisis by sharing part of the burden, that's not unreasonable. i have yet to hear the republican plan for getting this economy moving forward. it appears that they have no plan and are dedicated only to protecting those at the highest income in america. that is not a recipe for success. it may be somebody's idea of a campaign platform, but it san platform to build the economy. i also heard this morning when the republican leader came to the floor, senator mcconnell, and talked about the need to pass trade agreements. i have voted for trade

agreements. i believe that the united states, its workers and businesses can compete in this world successfully if the rules are fair and we're given a chance at the markets. and i voted for trade agreements in the past. the senator from kentucky asked for us to pass more as soon as possible. but he did say something which caught my attention, and i quote him. "in a moment when 14 million americans are looking for work," senator mcconnell said, "it is indefensible for the twhows demand a vote on trade adjustment assistance as a condition for action." i couldn't believe my ears when i heard that. trade adjustment assistance is designed to put people back to work who have lost their jobs because of trade agreements. so it is totally defensible, totally consistent, and an important part of economic recovery. madam president, the alliance for american manufacturing release add report this morning that 2.8 million jobs have been lost or displaced in america

between 2001 and 2010. 2.8 million jobs. as we speak about expanding trade adjustment assistance so that those who've lost their jobs to nonfree trade agreement countries like india and china, we are talking about putting americans back to work. this should not be viewed as an obstacle, a diversion, or inconsistent with economic recovery. i couldn't follow the logic of the senate republican leader this morning when he was talking about trade adjustment assistance being indefensible at a time of high unemployment. it is totally defensible, totally consistent with putting americans back to work. for the record, since 2009, trade adjustment assistance has provided assistance to 447,235 workers in america who've been displaced due to trade agreements. it helps their families with income, with health care, with opportunities for retraining and

education. madam president, i ask that the second part of my remarks be placed in a accept part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, it was ten years ago when i introduced the "dream" act, an important piece of legislation for thousands of people living in america who were literally without status, without a country. the "dream" act says if you came to the u.s. as a child, if you are a long-term u.s. resident, if you have good moral character, if you've ga graduatd from high school and prepared to complete two years of college or enlist in our military, we will give you a chance to be legal in america. that's what it says. and the young people who are affected by it are many times people who have never known another country in their lives. they got up at school, as senator menendez has said so artfully, they pledged allegiance to the only flag they've only known, they sing the only national anthem though

know, they speak english and want a future in america and yet they have no country. because their parents brought them to this country as children, because their parents did not file the necessary papers, they are without a country and without a future, and the "dream" act gives them a chance, a chance to excel and prove they can make this a better naismtion the obama administration recently made an announcement that i think is not only the right thing to do but really paves the way for us to give these young people a chance. we think we have 10 million downlted people in america. and it is very clear the dment of homeland security is not going to deport 10 million people. that's physically impossible, nor should we. i certainly would be opposed to that notion. but what they're trying to do is to remove those people from america horn documented, that pose a threat to our nation. they've been criticized by some.

the depourations under the obama administration are even higher than the bush administration. they've tried to go after those with criminal records and those who really are not going to be a combiest to the united states and i think that is the -- going to be a benefit to the united states, and i think that is the right way to go. but they said recently that those eligible for the "dream" act, good moral character, graduates of high school and pursuing college degrees are not going to be their targets. they have limited resources to go after people who can threaten our country, those whom we don't want the united states. i think that was the right thing tovmentd and i think that that was a policy consistent with keeping america strong and building for america's future. but we need to do more. in addition to having a sensible policy when it comes to deportation, we need a sensible immigration policy. and i think it starts with the dreemen"dream" act. madam president, i have keep in mind to the floor many ayes times and told the stories about the young people who believed

affected by the "dream" ability. let me tell you two stories this morning that i think are illustrative of why this is morally important and important for us as a nation to consider as quickly as possible. this wonderful young lady, whom i've met, is named nandeep, is hahal. she was brought to the united states when she was six years old. today mondeep is 20, an academic all-starks an honors premed student at the university of california-davis where she's majoring in neurology, physiology, and behavior. mondeep has also been dedicated to public service. in high school she helped to found on organization known as one dollar for life for poverty relief around the world. she was voted the member of her class most likely to save the world. at her college, mondeep is the copresident of "stand." she has so much to offer america.

but unfortunately she was placed in deportation proceedings earlier this year. mondeep and her friends responded the way many young people do today. they went to facebook. the response was amazing. 20,000 people sent faxes to the department of homeland security to save this young lady from deportation. on the day she was concealed scheduled to be deported she was grant add one-year stay. she tried to prevent other people from going through what she 4 experienced. she came to the u.s. capitol where i had an opportunity to meet her. she spoke publicly about her experience and she called for the depourations of all "dream" act students to be suspended. i met her while she was here and asked her to explain to me why she wants to stay. she said, i'll send you a letter. and she d here's what it said. "i've spent 14 years in the united states and consider it my only home. my family, friends, and future are in the united states, which

is where i belong. my dream is become a pediatrician so i can treat the most helpless and innocent among us. i hope to serve families in low-income communities who are otherwise una able to afford medical caimplet you wish to remain in the united states so that i can continue to make a positive difference and give back to the community that has given me so much." would america be better off if we deported mondeep back to india? i don't think so. she left that country when she was six years old. in her heart she is an american. she just wants a chance to prove it and to make this a better nation. now let me introduce to you one other person whom i've also met, another wonderful story. fannie martinez brought to the united states from mexico nine years when she was 13. she lives in the state of illinois, straight-a student in high school. earlier this year she graduated summa cum laude at dominican university in river forest,

illinois. is this month she is beginning to work on a master's degree at the harris school of public policy. she students get no help -- none -- from the federal government. if you think college is a burden now for those who borrow the money or are given the grants, most of these students have to earn the money, if they're going toe to go through school. let me tell you something else about fannie martinez. she is married to david martin martinez, who has served in the u.s. army reserves for the last eight years. here is a picture of the two of them together. david is currently deployed to afghanistan. putting his life on the line for our country and yet his worry is not just the enemy in afghanistan; his swore that his wife fannie is going to be deported while he's serving overseas. fannie sent me a letter. sheer's what she said. "my husband is constantly worried about my statistic news this country. he is knows i'm always at risk

of being placed in deportation proceedings. he is as a fraid of not having his wife with him when he comes home from afghanistan. the passage of the "dream" act will give me the confidence to live without fear and frustration. it will allow me and my husband to plan our future without having to deal with the possibility of deportation and lack of opportunity. i care about my community," fannie wrote. "and i know that i can help improve society if i am allowed to remain in the united states and am given lawful, permanent residence. david martinez, her husband is willing to give his life for our country. we should give him and his wife fannie a chance to pursue their dreams, the american dream. i don't know that i've ever dealt with an issue that has meant so much to me personally because there isn't a place i go in america anywhere that i don't have some young person come up and look me in the eye and say, i'm a dreerm. i'm counting on you. well, they're counting not just on me, but they're counting on the senate, they're counting on

the congress, they're continen g on our government and nation to step up and realize that this is morally the right thing to do and that these dynamic, wonderful young people will make this a better nation. please, put partisanship aside, support the "dream" act. it is the right thing to do for the future of our nation. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: it is my understanding that the majority -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. reid: i'm sorry. i ask that the call for the

quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: it is my understanding that the majority still has a few minutes left on morning business. is that true? the presiding officer: four minutes. mr. reid: i yield that bafnlg bafnlgt. the presiding officer: time is yielded back. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the motion to proceed to h.r. 2832 is greed and the clerk will report the measure. the clerk: calendar number 166, h.r. 2832, an act to extend the generalized system of preferences and for other purposes. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: on behalf of senators casey and brown, that's brown of ohio, and senator baucus, i call up amendment 633. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. reid for mr. casey and others proposes an amendment numbered 633. at the end, adding following: title 2: trade adjustment

assistance. mr. reid: mr. president, i would scukd that further reading be waibd. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: it is my understanding that the republican leader son his way to the floor. to offer an amendment of and i think everyone should understand there will be no business conducted until he shows up. so i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:-p.

the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: are we in a quorum? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. i call up my amendment which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell for himself and others proposes amendment 626. at the end add the following -- mr. mcconnell: i ask further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about the amendment that the majority

leader just called up, the trade adjustment assistance is what i'll focus on in particular in my remarks. i want to, first of all, thank the majority leader for his leadership on this issue in helping us get it started today. i'm particularly grateful for the strong leadership chairman baucus has provided. i want to thank him and their staff for their tireless efforts not just in leading up to today but over a long period of time, being such a strong advocate for this program. for many months chairman baucus led the charge to make sure a strong trade adjustment assistance program is reinstated because it's important public policy for our work toers get them re -- workers to get them retrained and to make sure they have the skills needed to compete in such a tough economy. so i appreciate his work. and i also appreciate chairman baucus' work for many years fighting for workers, especially

when their jobs are at risk, their lively hao*pbd their family's economic security. because i think chairman baucus and so many others -- my colleague senator brown from ohio who has been a tremendous leader on this issue as well. one thing we understand, we understand we're still in the grip of a jobs crisis all across the country. and it knows no geographic boundaries and it knows no party. people are worried and concerned that their jobs will continually be at risk, and some of course have already lost their job. almost 14.5 million americans at last count. so in the midst of that crisis, it's critically important that we take the steps here to make sure that those who want to get back into the workforce, those who want to improve their skills

or be retrained in some way or another have that opportunity. and we know in the next couple of weeks the congress will be taking up free trade agreements. but before we do that, before we consider the debate, before we consider those agreements, we've got to make sure that our workers have the protections they need to deal with the ravages of foreign competition. let me revise that. the ravages of unfair foreign competition. and there are lots of ways to talk about this program and this issue, and some of them, frankly, get a little academic. the best way for me to understand the importance of trade adjustment assistance is very, very much consistent with the recent and unfortunate economic history of my home state of pennsylvania. in our commonwealth, just by way of one example but it's the best example i can cite because of the numbers of workers affected.

in the commonwealth of pennsylvania in the 1970's and 1980's in a short period of time, in less than a decade we had tens of thousands of steelworkers lose their jobs. these were folks who worked in steel mills not just for a couple of years but for many instances decades. they would graduate from high school, go into the steel mill and be virtually guaranteed a job for the rest of their life. a good job with good benefits that they could support their family on. then we know what happened to those work tphers that industry. -- workers in that industry. a lot of their jobs were destroyed in the 1970's and 1980's because of the steel industry. it is at times like that when someone has worked their whole life and put all of their energies into a job and that job goes away in a matter of weeks, months or a few short years, we have to make sure we're there

for them at that moment. one of the ways we can be there for them is with trade adjustment assistance. i could point to and other members of the senate could point to other examples as well. but i remember that horrific history in pennsylvania where families were destroyed because of the loss of a job. our trade policies have hit a lot of american workers very hard, and especially today we're seeing that. i mentioned pennsylvania's manufacturing jobs as an example. according to an analysis by the joint economic committee, of which i'm the chairman, from 1997 to 2010, just 13 years, manufacturing went from 16.4% of the gross domestic product, gross state product of pennsylvania, down to 12.1%. 13 years, just a short period of time, that kind of decline in manufacturing jobs, from roughly

16.5 to 12. in total, the job loss in pennsylvania manufacturing was nearly 300,000 good-paying jocks. while -- good paying jobs. while trade adjustment assistance can't bring those jobs back, we can take steps to help those workers in a tough time as they transition to new employment, to new skills and to new opportunities. many displaced workers need considerable training to reenter the labor market. just imagine if any one of us did the same job for years and decades and then had to turn on a dime to adjust to difficulties in the economy. it takes awhile. according to a report by the joint committee committee as well, many of these folks who have lost their jobs are much older than the rest of the workforce and they need to gain a number of skills. 57% of country participants in the trade adjustment assistance

program are 45 years of age or older. 57%. trade adjustment assistance can better address the needs of these displaced workers by requiring training and giving additional time for workers to gain the skills necessary to reenter the workforce to preparer to compete -- to prepare to compete in a tough economy, in a world economy. we know these programs work. we know that based upon the j.e.c. report that i cited earlier, 53% of those who participated in trade adjustment assistance programs were reemployed within three months. 53% reemployed within three months after leaving the program itself. these participants also found lasting employment with 80% of those workers employed within the first three months remaining employed for an additional six months. we know that in 2009 several

reforms were made to the program to reflect the realities of the modern workforce and the modern labor market. the amendment i offer today with my colleague senator brown of ohio would reinstate these reforms, including the following by way of a quick summary. number one, providing trade adjustment assistance benefits to service-sector workers. number two, covering workers whose firms shift production to nonfree trade agreement partner countries. for example, china and india. we hear a lot of people talking around here about how we have got to compete with china and india and keep our workers at a high skill level to do that. this is one way to do that. number three and finally, increasing the health care tax credit subsidy to 72.5% and hereby addressing one of the most significant costs for those without a job, the cost of health insurance.

we all know, and i know firsthand, the benefits of a strong trade adjustment assistance program, based upon what's happened in pennsylvania over many years. according to the department of labor, from may of 2009 through june, 2011, just a little more than two years, nearly 10,000 additional workers qualify for assistance due to these essential reforms in pennsylvania. so the reforms that we made then in 2009 that we put in place have helped nearly 10,000 workers in pennsylvania. if you look at it nationwide, 185,783 additional workers were certified for t.a.a. participation because of those reforms. in total, trade adjustment assistance has assisted nearly half a million people over this time period. so our action this week will ensure that thousands of american workers will be able to count on retraining and other support if they lose their job

through no fault of their own. more and more jobs -- and we all know this, but it bears repeating -- more and more jobs have been sent overseas, leaving workers out in the cold. nothing they did has caused outsourcing of their job, and yet they are left with the consequences, and their families suffer with those same consequences. to get jobs in new industries, workers need new skills. they need to be retrained and introduced to new skills. trade adjustment assistance helps those workers hurt by foreign trade back to work while also ensuring the employers have a skilled work force at the same time. so finally, let me urge all my colleagues to support this amendment. trade adjustment assistance has a long and proud history of bipartisan support in the senate, and i hope we can continue that with this -- with this amendment and with this work. those who have been affected by this know this story better than

i or better than any of us, and it's about time that we stood with those workers when they and their families are suffering, and i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that immediately following my remarks, if it is all right with the distinguished senator from ohio, that the former trade representative, the distinguished senator from the -- the other distinguished senator from ohio, mr. portman, be allowed to give his remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. hatch: with your consent. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. hatch: i apologize to senator brown, but senator portman was promised that he would be able to speak at 11:45. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i -- i didn't quite

hear that. i thought that senator hatch said that the senior senator from ohio, then the junior senator from ohio. was that the u.c. request? the presiding officer: no. the u.c. request was for the senator from utah, the junior senator from ohio, then the senior senator from ohio. mr. brown: okay. i didn't understand that from my conversations, but i do not object. mr. hatch: mr. president, i strongly oppose the t.a.a. amendment offered by my good friend and colleague from montana, chairman baucus. but before i get into the specifics, i think it is important to put this debate in context. for years, i have been working to ensure that our pending trade agreements with colombia, panama and south korea receive fair consideration in the united states congress. unfortunately, while i worked to get these agreements approved, other placed obstacles in the way. as a result, days, weeks and months passed. eventually, those months turned into years. now four years later, we are taking up the sixth renewal of trade adjustment assistance in

the time that these job-creating trade agreements have languished. to me it's highly ironic that we not only passed but expanded legislation to help workers who were allegedly harmed by trade agreements five times over the last four years, while we have yet to actually pass a single trade agreement. this march, president obama made himself perfectly clear. unless congress agreed to spend more money for this pet trade priority, he would never send the trade agreements to congress, and u.s. workers would never benefit to these agreements. basically, the president held u.s. exporters hostage while he squeezed more spending out of congress. despite my deep disappointment in the president's failure to make these agreements a priority, i'm pleased that we are having this debate today. earlier this summer, the administration tried to jam this domestic spending program into the korea free trade agreement implementing bill. i strongly oppose this move. i believe that violated long-standing trade rules and seriously jeopardized approval of the south korea agreement.

i strongly encourage the white house to reconsider so we could have a robust debate with t.a.a. considered solely on its merits. after all, if there is such a strong bipartisan support for the program, it should not be from a debate in an open forum. the administration realized their position was untenable in the face of an unequivocal republican opposition. thankfully they decided to heed my voice and today we have a chance to fully consider and vote on t.a.a. if t.a.a. passes the senate, we would remove the last obstacle that the president and his party placed in front of the f.d.a.'s. we will see. today we see there is little evidence that the president is finally ready to step up to the plate. it has not been for lack of effort on our part. house leadership made it clear that t.a.a. will be considered in tandem with the f.t.a.'s that the president requested.

chairman camp worked with senator baucus to develop a substantive deal on t.a.a., as the president requested. despite my deep reservations about the program, a number of my republican senate colleagues stepped up in support of the t.a.a. compromise negotiated by chairman baucus and chairman camp and even put their assurance in writing to support t.a.a. before the august work period, senators mcconnell and reid articulated a process for considering of t.a.a. and f.t.a.'s as the president requested. still the administration refuses to provide any real assurance that it will actually send the pending free trade agreements to congress for a vote. now, i'm very disappoint thad we still have not heard definitively from the white house that they will send up the three f.t.a.'s.

as for the trade adjustment assistance amendment before us today, i would like to summarize for my colleagues my concerns with the proposed expanded program. and my objections to additional domestic spending for this program at a time of immense budget difficulties. first, there is little evidence that the t.a.a. programs actually work. in fact, the opposite is true. recent studies by professors at american university have found that the t.a.a. program -- quote -- "has no discernible impact on the employment outcomes of the participants." unquote. now, if that is the case, i can't understand why we would expand this ineffective program. i was surprised to learn from an article in "the wall street journal" that the department of labor is four years late on produce ago report to congress intended to demonstrate that the numerous trade adjustment assistance programs actually improved the employment outcome for t.a.a. participants. yesterday, today we are considering an amendment to not only reauthorize the program for

three years but to make many of the benefits retroactive. before we authorize a billion dollars more in taxpayer spending, shouldn't we know if the program actually improves the job prospects for t.a.a. beneficiaries? my friend and colleague from oklahoma, dr. coburn, has made it a priority to identify and eliminate wasteful government programs. in his first report on the subject, the government accountability office identified dozens of programs without any identifiable metrics on whether they actually succeeded in their mission. at a time of crushing budget deficits and increasing debt, congress could easily start by eliminating these programs that have no proven track record of success, and in my opinion we would have to put t.a.a. at the top of that list. consider that we are still waiting on the report from the department of labor on t.a.a.'s efficacy. i suspect that if the facts and the data clearly demonstrated benefits to workers participating in the t.a.a.

programs, the report would have been issued years ago. i am sure this report will be issued but only after t.a.a. has been passed. i cannot support increasing funding for a program without any real evidence that it works. some will argue that more people are using the program, therefore it must be working. i strongly reject that argument. spending more money and certifying more workers does not mean a program of succeeding except it simply means that the program is expanding. and that is my second concern. like many federal government programs, this domestic spending program continues to grow and grow. t.a.a. money now goes to farmers, firms, community colleges and service workers. even more troubling, the critical nexus between job loss caused by trade agreements and t.a.a. eligibility has been jettisoned. today, all workers who lose their jobs allegedly due to -- quote -- "globalization"

unquote -- could be eligible. as the global economy and global supply chains become more integrated, i suspect the number of beneficiaries and the cost to the u.s. taxpayer will grow enormously. third, at a time when we need to severely constrain federal spending, this program increases it. in 2009, t.a.a. was significantly expanded as part of the president's failed stimulus bill. most of those increased costs are included in the t.a.a. amendment before us today, but there may be additional hidden costs. because the income support and the health coverage tax credit are entitles, there is no cap on future spending, and although the health coverage tax credits are set to expire when obamacare goes into full effect, i have serious doubts that they actually will. history shows again and again that it is much easier to create an entitlement than to end one. as i said, i suspect that this program, like most federal programs, will cost more than expected, especially after unemployment insurance returns to its traditional 26-week

level, which will consequently increase the use of trade re-allocation allowances and increase the t.a.a. program costs. fourth, the program is fundamentally unfair. suppose that one of our fellow americans loses their job or his job because their factory burns down. another loses his job because his or her company couldn't compete with a domestic competitor. and a third loses his or her job because of foreign competition. how can we tell two of our fellow americans tough luck, you only can use the general job training and unemployment insurance programs while providing the third worker with a host of more generous training, income support and health care benefits? this simply doesn't seem right to me. why are we picking winners and losers amongst the over 14 million americans looking for work? i am -- i have also traveled although union workers are less than 7% of the private sector

work force, union workers receive over a third of the t.a.a. certifications. i don't see why we should support this vicious cycle. unions drive industry after industry into bankruptcy by insisting on restrictive work rules and overly generous compensation and benefits plans, and the taxpayer gets to come in and clean up the mess by providing the now-unemployed union workers with a new set of benefits far more generous than those received by others who are out of work. unfortunately, encouraging vicious cycles appears to be an objective of this administration when it comes to t.a.a. let me share with you another one. by now, most of you have heard of a company called solyndra. it was held up by the president and his administration as an example of the wonders of the stimulus and its ability to transform taxpayer dollars into great jobs. here is how president obama described it -- quote -- "we can see the positive impacts right here at solyndra.

through the recovery act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. this new factory is the result of those loans." unquote. well, the president was right about that. the new factory was the result of the taxpayer-provided loans. and according to the "wall street journal," those very same taxpayer loan guarantees also were a prime cause of solyndra's bankruptcy. the -- quote -- "taxpayers to green jobs" alchemy worked about as well as the attempt to turn lead into gold. that's not the end of the story. the former solyndra employees have now applied for trade adjustment assistance. that's right. as reported first by americans for limited government and then confirmed by investors business daily, solyndra employees have applied to the department of labor for trade adjustment assistance. so to recap, the administrn